“Timothy Adès’ ‘The Excellent Wessex Event’ uses the Oulipo univocal lipogram omitting a, i, o and u to produce a narrative poem in rhyming couplets drawing upon the film version of Hardy’s Far From The Madding Crowd. This one hundred line sequence comes with a set of multi–language footnotes all with the same impediment.” — David Caddy blog, Tears in the Fence

Introduction to ‘The Excellent Wessex Event’

This univocalic lipogram won an, um, won a Flamingo–Quill (that’s almost right) award, six months, no, many months ago. It honours two icons of British womanhood, drawing on Thomas Hardy’s book Far From A Madding Crowd, or strictly on a film of that book which was famous in my youth, and on a suburban mini–saga of sport and courtship by an illustrious Old Marlburian, which harks back to my boyhood, south of London. What is a lipogram? It’s a form of writing popular with a Gallic group known as Oulipo, that is to say ‘Writing Possibility Workshop’, although ‘lipo–’ may go back to Plato’s old word for ‘omit’ … not, I might add, to his similar word for ‘fat’. A lipogram is all about having a constraint, such as omitting a basic unit (or two) from a particular composition. If you look at this paragraph, you won’t find any omission of A, I, O or U.

An accompanying apparatus criticus informs of variants found in manuscripts, or thought up by scholars, and will cast light on any occasional obscurity. I did classics as a schoolboy, and sat through any amount of this kind of thing. If at any point you can’t follow my non–local lingo, why not look for a translation on my www.

THE EXCELLENT WESSEX EVENT (When She Wedded Me)
(N.B. PRECEDENCE: THE PEER EXEMPTED)
We exempt the respected Ned Wessex, the peer:
He needn’t feel he’d be the reference here.
Well, he weren’t yet preferred, when these verses were penned!
Ex Egbert the Elder, three brethren descend.

HERSELF

MS B. EVERDENE, MS B. EVERDENE, (5)
Deep–zested, tweed–chested, the Western sweet–teen!
Her best speed exceeded the fleet leveret;
Her feet were the slenderest, tenderest yet.

She entered her jennet, she swept three events: (25)
She wrecked, she sternwheelered the three–decker fence.
When she screen–tested, Elstree’s behests were exceeded:
‘Three cheers!’ Terence yelled: yet she’ll never be needed.

She revered the Berserkers, kept her épées well flexed:
She peppered the mêlée, mere nerds were de–sexed!
When she vented her spleen, the events were extreme…! (35)
She fenced well; she effected the deeds we esteem.

She led her eleven (three sevens less ten):
We felt her svelte vehemence, we keen Wessex men.
She served — the bets lengthened — she swept the next set:
‘Twelve–twelve: even stevens! They’ll strengthen the net.’ (40)

[Theme: ’Greensleeves’]

He’s the Verderers’ Verger, he re–elmed The Glebe,
Re–nested the egret, re–crested the grebe.
He re–elvered the Exe, when her nether emergence
Went eel–less. ‘We need fresher, greener detergents!’ (60)

The week when dense kex–weed enfeebled the Trent,
(Even newts were perplexed!) he’s the geezer they sent.
He metered the elements, tested the presence,
Tended reed–beds, dredged trenches, expelled the excrescence.

He let eels beget elvers: they revelled, went legless! (65)
Wrens, tree–creepers, greylegs, he never left eggless.
He preserved the West Erg, where the Ténéré tree
Met her Meddler. Meseemed he’d preserve even Me.

THE PLEDGE [Sennet.]

The Evercreech Levée! Green–belted her dress;
Sheer–selvedged, her neckleted red–freckledness. (70)
We went there; the fenderless Edsel relented;
She seemed pre–selected, her cheeks smelled sweet–scented.

Well–heeled Wessex vespers! The well–tempered keys!
The nerveless resplendence! The strength next the knees!
We’ll let Messrs Sleepeezee pre–test the bed, (75)
The pelmet, the tester, the sheets, WHEN WE WED!

The deckle–edged letters, the speech, the set jest,
The new, well–hedged nest–egg (she’s pledged me the nest!);
The leek–green Welsh dresser, the cleverest shelves
Where the bent Penney’s rejects re–centre themselves. (80)

WE NEVER EXPECTED THE EVENT’S REPELLENT END…

She SPEWED crème de menthe, MESSED her velveteen breeches,
She DRENCHED her three nephews, prevented the speeches.
Ms JEZEBEL Everdene’s never been wed: [95]
She’s rendered me REDELESS — the new ETHELRED!
Yes, she wended, went west, she bereft me, defected,
She schlepped, de–selected, she left me dejected,
Yes, she expleted, reverted, depleted, DESERTED THE BED!
She dwells where the Menderes enters the Med. THE END. (100)

NEC DEBES CREDERE

Translations for the Apparatus Criticus to ‘The Excellent Wessex Event’
This appendage smells of the Homeric drug that banishes grief … and this text ‘slowly disentenebrates’ — from hell! (The one–vowel phrase is from a poem of Jean Cassou: my translation in the book 33 Sonnets … runs: ‘From hollow pools of gloom so slow to go’.)

4 Egbert the Elder So I prefer to claim; in fact the brothers descended, among 3,737 deceased persons male and female, from Ethelred the Unready. Nor is there such a king as Egbert the Elder. Ethelbert of Kent is certainly a king, but seems to have had few royal descendants.

52 Ps.–Psell. Pseudo–Psellus, a commentator who might have been Psellus, but was not. Psellus: an eminent Byzantine.

53 Bells Yew Green, in East Sussex: near the Kent boundary. The poem ‘Ethelbert’s Men’ contrasts the devout shepherds of Sheppey (‘sheep–isle’) with the pagan Ethelbert, whose queen was St Bertha. She supported St Augustine, who landed at Ebbsfleet. Pegwell Bay, famously painted by Dyce, is near the ferry–port of Ramsgate; Dover Beach is where Matthew Arnold noted ‘the melancholy, long, withdrawing roar’ of faith.

59 ‘The harder the text, so much the more worthy of respect.’ The scholars’ principle, when manuscripts disagree: difficilior lectio potior, the more difficult reading should prevail: inferring from the confusion that the original, correct, text must have been something peculiar. This idea has led to some very peculiar conjectures.

61 The famous Trent splits the middle of England (stupidly spelt) and neatly separates the bishoprics. Certainly, this slowed–down Trent of Mr Everdene‘s seems to be, in contrast, the very narrow Trent of the West Country [‘the Piddle’], whose name the local people are forever plaguing and perverting!

67 ‘Ripley’s Believe It Or Not’ tells of the world’s loneliest tree, knocked down by a French truck–driver. Déclencher, to release, let go; débrayer, to de–clutch. ‘You might wish to believe the matter, and you might not’ (Latin hexameter). New Jersey Primer of the Very Rarely Experienced.

100 The Menderes wanders and snakes (it’s famous: it’s the very word of the Greeks, explicitly, the Meander) and pours out on the east of the Aegean, lovely sea, close to those same Greeks. That Aegean Sea! — scene of legendary events! Those events annoyed the excellent Aeneas and the father of Aeneas and even the teenage schoolboy, OK the little son of Aeneas. Hark at him, the despairing Aeneas! — “Mother! dear mother! Most beautiful, heavenly goddess! Hear, o hear! Dry out my waterlogged pinnaces! Put away the winds, prohibit the tempests! I’m searching for lovely lands, lovely women and wealthy patrons!”